Need a free online life coach? Look no further than the most motivational self-help authors of the past. Inspiring readings from James Allen, Napoleon Hill, Hellen Keller, Booker T. Washington, Khalil Gibran, Marcus Aurelius, and more.

10+ Million Downloads

Help Fund Our Podcast

Would you like to show us your financial support? Please click on the PayPal donate button below to make your donation. Donations can be made in increments of $10. You do not need a Paypal account to use this form. Secure checkout provided by E-junkie.com. Thank you!

Connect With Us

Listen to episode 357 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Motivation for Initiative, Success & Concentration. Edited and adapted from Making the Grade by C.V. Mosby.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. Now is your last chance to get all 3 of our inspirational eBooks, featuring the best of our podcast, totaling 150 life lessons, for just 10 dollars. To take advantage of this special ebook sale visit LivingHour.org/ten. The sale ends on Sunday.

Today’s reading was edited and adapted from Making the Grade by C.V. Mosby, published in 1917.

Resistance gives way to superior force continuously applied upon a given point. This is a law of physics and also a law of life. Concentrate your energy and you burn a way through opposition. One of the chief difficulties in life consists of not being able to concentrate. Few people when they work throw their entire energy into the task.

Go into a store or a factory and take note of the employees. You will find most of them working in a lackadaisical manner, doing just enough to keep up a semblance of being busy and thereby escape a reprimand from the manager. The clock is watched assiduously and as soon as closing time arrives, nothing can keep them one minute longer than is necessary to put their stocks in order and get away.

Lack of concentration is one of the great contributing factors among those who cannot make the grade. Concentration is no easy task. It demands the most carefully trained will and a powerful determination. Thinking must always precede the act.

If we act with concentration, we must think in the same way. And let it be said here that well-trained, concentrated thinking comes only after much effort has been expended upon it. To think correctly is hard work. If you do not believe me, try to concentrate your mind on a given object for five minutes; exclude all extraneous matter and think upon that one subject continuously. Try this for a time and you will be astounded at the magnitude of the task.